The Times-Tribune: Service at Your Fingertip

July 16, 2006 -- A shopping service designed to help a consumer find local products by making one phone call will debut in Northeastern Pennsylvania this week.

The search service, called mWIRE, aims to connect people in need of products with local merchants who can supply them.

Its co-owner is Times-Shamrock Communications, which publishes The Times-Tribune and The Citizens’ Voice and owns more than 20 other daily and weekly newspapers and 10 radio stations.

Pittsburgh-based Waterfront Wireless Properties, the other owner, developed mWIRE over the past five years.

When mWIRE launches Monday, consumers will be able to call an automated telephone service, leave a message of what they want and how much they will pay, and several merchants may call back with offers.

“This service turns the Yellow Pages on its head,” said Matthew Haggerty, mWIRE project manager for Scranton-based Times-Shamrock. “Here, all you have to do is make one phone call and let the merchants compete for your business.”

Times-Shamrock is the first newspaper company to implement the shopping search service, but won’t be the last, said Al Majkowski, chief executive of Waterfront Wireless.

“Our product is now red-hot in the newspaper industry,” he said. “In cooperation with other newspaper Goliaths, we anticipate a fairly extensive, rapid rollout of mWIRE nationally.”

He declined to name the other prospective newspaper clients but said the service is on pace to spread to 100 U.S. markets in the next 18 months.

These so-called “local search” systems are among the most competitive fields of technological innovation, analysts say.

Newspaper companies are trying to establish local searches for each of their own communities, while Internet search engine corporations pursue massive databases for all communities.

Both are jockeying for a large pool of advertising revenue from merchants who would try to sell goods through the local searches.

The mWIRE service is a unique twist in the local search universe because it is telephone-based and involves personal communication.

For consumers, it can be a free shopping assistant for finding desirable prices or scarce goods in their own neighborhoods, Mr. Haggerty said.

Shoppers initially will be able to request products in five general categories:

• Automotive
• Appliances/consumer electronics/retail
• Real estate
• Professional services
• House and home

Merchants, meanwhile, can reach new customers who want their products and are ready to buy. Because mWIRE is phone-based, it can reach small businesses that don’t have Web sites or e-mail addresses.

“We intend . . . to really reinvent the way small- to medium-size businesses interact with their everyday customer base,” Mr. Majkowski said.

The service is free for the consumer, but participating merchants will pay a monthly membership fee, as well as a toll for each consumer lead that they accept, after an initial free trial period, The question to be answered is: Will people embrace the new technology?

Many merchants appear to be getting on board. Up to 200 may be participating when the service launches tomorrow , and hundreds more eventually, Mr. Haggerty said.

Shoppers are the next target.

Times-Shamrock will use a promotional campaign in its newspapers — including an mWIRE logo on the front page and details on page two — as well as billboards, television and radio ads.

Initial promotions will focus on people who want to save time shopping, perhaps because they are very active or have children, said Cathy Labori, marketing manager for The Times-Tribune.

“It’s all about people on the go, and that type of lifestyle,” Ms. Labori said.

After an early rush of movers and shakers, the service should use word-of-mouth to attract all types of people, she said.

Times-Shamrock hopes to have mWIRE well established by the fall, when many people will want help with their holiday shopping.

The company also hopes a successful mWIRE service will fend off global competition in the “local search” industry.

Internet search engine corporations, such as Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., are racing to add local community information to their searches.

Like Times-Shamrock, newspaper companies across the country are trying to defend their advertising turf by developing their own local shopping search systems.

Three of the nation’s largest newspaper chains — Gannett Co. Inc., Knight Ridder Inc., and Tribune Co. — partnered in May 2004 to purchase an online shopping service provider.

Now known as ShopLocal.com, their service lists prices and products from major national retailers, and adds information about sales in local stores for more than 180 newspaper markets.

“The old media (are) really adapting and taking on new media,” said Melissa Severin, spokeswoman for Chicago-based ShopLocal LLC. “There is a huge open space for this. There’s nothing more local than your local newspaper and local stores.”

Newspaper-produced local searches, like Times-Shamrock’s mWIRE, should have an advantage over international competitors, Mr. Haggerty said.

“We are trying to build it from a local level, and that’s the knowledge they don’t have — they don’t have people on the street,” Mr. Haggerty said. “I don’t see anyone building a local network of advertisers like we have.”

In fact, one of the largest search engine companies wanted mWIRE-type technology so badly it offered to buy Waterfront Wireless Properties in recent years, Mr. Majkowski said.

He said he won’t consider buyouts at least until the initial 100-market rollout is complete.

“These stratospheric search engine companies know they need to embark on the local search market, because that is where the real commerce is,” Mr. Majkowski said.